Ahead of the first Test against South Africa at Eden Gardens, India assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate said the team hopes to apply lessons from last year’s home Test series loss to New Zealand.The first Test starts on Friday in Kolkata.India enters the series after a 2-0 win against West Indies at home. South Africa comes in after drawing 1-1 in Pakistan, where their spinners Keshav Maharaj, Simon Harmer and Senuran Muthusamy took 33 of the 40 Pakistani wickets. All three averaged below 22. Maharaj took a nine-wicket haul in the series, Harmer recorded a four-wicket haul and a six-wicket haul, and Muthusamy was named Player of the Series with 11 wickets in the first Test.India still remembers the home Test series loss to New Zealand last year, where Ajaz Patel (15 wickets), Mitchell Santner (13 wickets) and Glenn Phillips (8 wickets) shared 36 out of 60 wickets. That defeat came against a lineup featuring Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, and Ravichandran Ashwin. The New Zealand series turned out to be their last Test appearance in India as Ashwin retired later in the middle of the Border-Gavaskar series in Australia, while Kohli and Rohit retired after the series.Speaking before the match, Doeschate said, “You normally worry about the pace attack first and I am pretty sure they will go with two seamers and three if not four spinners. But that is also the challenge when you are playing in the subcontinent.”“Something as a team that we need to get better at. We addressed it early on. We have come up short a few times. So it is a great challenge.”India had lost a home series 0-3 to New Zealand last year. “Hopefully, we have learned from the New Zealand series. We have put some plans into place against how to play the spin. It is going to be so important over these two games. Particularly how well they did in Pakistan about four weeks ago.”Ten Doeschate said South Africa has developed well in recent months and credited their progress in Test cricket.“They deserve a lot of credit for how they have gone about their work in the last 9-10 months. The position they have found themselves in the World Test Championship, they have shown that they are a quality team — to beat Australia in the final…,” he said.“Also, the mention of how potent they are as a spin attack makes it even more mouth-watering, to be playing them at home,” Doeschate said as quoted by news agency PTI.
